


So Happily I’d Die

by Island_of_Reil



Series: Rova Eimenar: An Anthology [2]
Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Clergymen, Ear Licking and Sucking, First Time, Frottage, Lap Sex, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:59:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: He is short and scrawny and frog-voiced and often disagreeable, but he learned not to remind Evru of this when Evru called him beautiful; and if it transpires that he is making yet another great mistake, at least he will not compound it with petty ones. So instead he covers Teru’s hand with his own and turns his head to press a kiss into the palm.





	So Happily I’d Die

Teru rises, and so does Thara.

They do not touch again, not now. Not yet. What may be interpreted as prayerful when one kneels at an altar loses the assumption of sanctity once one has regained one’s feet. Even if no other man, or woman, is there to see the Mich’othasmeire profaned, the gods would see. But there is a knowing in the Archprelate’s eyes, as Thara is sure there must be in his own, the same knowing that burns like lit oil in his belly.

Once again they cross the expanse of the Untheileneise’meire. Though this is only the third time Thara has done so in the last day, and he has crossed it fewer than a dozen times in his entire life, he has the eerie sense that his life has consisted wholly of walking across this haunted wood, re-created in marble, that devours all warmth. Then he refocuses on Teru’s shoulders beneath his cloak, on the fall of his plait down his back, and he smiles absently as the uncanny feeling flits away like a moth.

They pass once again through Archprelatial antechamber, corridor, and private office. When they re-enter Teru’s suite of rooms, nerves flutter beneath the point of Thara’s ribs. “Thy manservant…” he begins quietly, leaving the question unasked.

Teru answers it smoothly as he lights the candle by the door: “Has been with me more than ten years, is as loyal as a nohecharis, and sleeps like one in the arms of Ulis.” There is genuine affection in the words, and a touch of humor as well. Thara’s heart lifts upon hearing them.

He follows Teru not back to the guest bedchamber but to the master one. It would not be a large bedchamber for a lord of any rank, but it is for a cleric, especially one of austere tastes. Other than yet another full bookcase and a few simple pine chairs by the hearth, there is no furniture therein that is not necessary to its purpose: narrow wardrobe, simple washstand, small nightstand, and … the bed, against the nearer wall. Thara’s eyes settle upon it and cannot look away.

Like the room around it, the bed is not especially large, but it is wider than one would expect of a cleric’s. It is, like the office desk, of dark and ornately carved wood, especially the headboard, replete with the iconography of all the gods in low relief. Thara wonders if Teru would have preferred a bed like the one in the guest chamber but decided it would be simplest and least wasteful to sleep in that of his predecessor.

Teru closes the door behind them, sets the candle down on the nightstand, and hangs his cloak on the doorpeg. “I’ll take thy coat,” he says. The room is as chill as most of his rooms, but Thara shrugs eagerly, awkwardly out of his coat. Teru does not remark upon or even smile at his clumsiness, simply takes the garment and lays it over his own on the peg. Thara wants to laugh at himself for how arousing he finds the sight of his own coat covering Teru’s cloak. He is no adolescent; he is not even inexperienced. Yet he is stirred by such a simple, practical thing.

Heart racing with both lust and apprehension, he watches Teru kneel before the hearth. Though his homespun clothing is not tight in cut, it clings to the firm swell of his buttocks above his heels. It pulls snugly over his arms and shoulders, too, as he hefts a fresh log and sets it in place, then strikes flint to steel. The fresh-kindled fire makes him glow in silhouette; the gleam of his hair is something Thara can nearly feel beneath his palms.

Teru rises and turns, his face soft, and he comes to Thara. He takes Thara’s hands in both of his, chafes them gently. “So small,” he whispers. “And so delicate… and so cold.”

Thara can barely speak, both fears and knows he’ll sound the raven to Teru’s nightingale, but he manages a barely audible, “I do not feel very cold, not now.”

Teru’s eyes fill with light, like the sun’s rays upon the waves. “Nor I.”

Thara expects a broad hand to lift his chin for a kiss and is ready to close his eyes. Instead Teru, still clasping Thara’s hands, begins to move decisively toward the bed. He releases Thara as he sits on the edge and slips off his indoor shoes. As Thara sets his boots with his socks inside on the floor beside them, Teru seats himself on the bed, back to the wall and legs stretched out.

He has barely reached out his arms when Thara sinks astride him, trembling with his own eagerness. Teru pulls him down and against him as Thara seizes him by the shoulders, both of them gasping softly as their cockstands brush against one another within their clothes.

Their mouths join with a softness and reverence that makes Thara ache with the tenderness of it. But the kiss deepens quickly, and as Thara’s tongue finds Teru’s the fire of it rises and leaps. Teru moans, the noise soft and stifled, against Thara’s lips, and Thara echoes it in his own throat. For long months, grief and guilt have obscured for him how much he’s missed this: warm skin, wet mouth, quick breath, hard cock, the scent of another man’s skin, the urge to push and stroke and grip and grind and thrust. He moans again, more audibly this time, as strong fingertips run a light path up the inner surface of his left ear, then fondle the tip between them.

“I could listen to thee moan so all night,” Teru breathes against Thara’s lips as he refocuses his attentions on the right ear. Thara does not answer, just throws himself back into the kiss and digs his blunt-cut nails into Teru’s shoulder blades through his shirt.

When he feels Teru’s hands on his wrists, he asks with a tinge of embarrassment, “Did I hurt thee?”

“No,” comes the reply, underlaid with laughter; “I just wish to divest thee of thy shirt.”

“Oh.” They’re both chuckling now, and Thara continues to smile even behind the cloth of his shirt as Teru works it over his torso and head and then casts it to the floor. He arches into the warmth of broad palms flat upon his belly, sliding upward, then gasps loudly as Teru’s thumbs brush against the hard peaks of his nipples.

Teru’s breath hitches. Then Thara can barely catch his own as Teru devotes a thumb and two fingers to each nipple. He all but swoons on his knees on the bed, flames licking throughout him and clear seed beginning to blot the front of his trousers.

A warm palm cups the right side of his face. “Art so beautiful, Thara, and especially when art overcome by passion.”

Yet again, Thara does not answer. He is short and scrawny and frog-voiced and often disagreeable, but he learned not to remind Evru of this when Evru called him beautiful, and if it transpires that he is making yet another great mistake, at least he will not compound it with petty ones. So instead he covers Teru’s hand with his own and turns his head to press a kiss into the palm, and he thanks all the gods that Teru does not expect him to reply and that the firelight is kind upon his sunken flesh with the bones all but visible beneath his skin.

He looses a small cry when he feels lips, not fingers, upon his right nipple. He palms the tightly pulled hair atop Teru’s head, fancying that he can, in fact, feel its gleam. Then he picks apart the plait with a dexterity that comes back to him after months of wearing his own hair cropped until he feels silken strands brush and fall over his fingers. Teru murmurs against his chest in pleasure and arches slightly into the touch of Thara’s hands upon his scalp and his hair.

Then hot fingers are sliding inside the front waist of Thara’s trousers, picking teasingly at the buttons of the flies. Though Thara’s breath is coming ever shorter, he cannot help but arch a brow. “Wouldst have me naked in thy lap while remain’st fully clad? Such unfairness does not suit a consecrated man.”

Teru’s eyes gleam. “I do not recall ever making any vows to a god of _fairness.”_

“Well met, Your Grace,” Thara concedes with a twitch of his lips. They both chuckle again. But Teru is unbuttoning his shirt, even as he holds Thara’s gaze challengingly.

He has no sooner bared his chest and cast the shirt away than Thara’s hands are upon it, smoothing over the flat expanse, teasing the nipples. Teru closes his eyes and sighs. Thara attends to his nipples with more pressure, and Teru shakes his head minutely. “It does not afford me quite the pleasure it does thee.”

“Ah.” Thara thinks for a moment, then reaches out to trace the inner length of Teru’s left ear, as Teru did his. When Teru sucks in his breath and releases it with a grunt, Thara leans forward, and his tongue he retraces the path his finger took. Teru is not as vocal with the pleasure of it as Thara was, but he murmurs his approval as his shoulders and chest heave under Thara’s slight weight.

When Thara takes the tip into his mouth and gently sucks, careful of his teeth, he does earn a soft groan from Teru. He takes his time at it, fingers renewing their attentions closer to the base, then at length shifts his tribute to the other ear. The moan he eventually elicits is louder now, and Thara groans in turn and bucks, almost without willing it, against Teru.

 _“Stop,”_ comes the hiss. Broad hands fall upon and still Thara’s hips. “Wilt make me spend in my trousers. I’m far too old for that, Thara.”

Thara laughs around a mouthful of ear-tip. “So am I, for that matter. How _dost_ wish to spend?” he murmurs teasingly.

“Sadly, I no longer keep oil to hand, and I cannot speak for thee but my mouth is …” Teru exhales. “… rather dry just now.” He is silent for a second, then asks, “Skin to skin?”

The thought of it soars through Thara’s mind like a falling star, its tail lashing his insides with fire. “Oh, gods, _yes,”_ he breathes, and he half-expects to be chided for his blasphemy, but Teru merely reaches again for the flies of Thara’s trousers.

Thara’s own hands fumble upon Teru’s flies, then upon his cock. The heat of it leaves his own mouth even drier, and its breadth and heft make him shake with the thought of himself split asunder upon it. Teru’s thumb is smoother, more assured, as it strokes over Thara’s cockhead, then finds the niche underneath where the foreskin meets the shaft. The touches make Thara jerk like a theater puppet and force small incoherent sounds from his lips.

“Raise thyself up a bit?” Teru whispers, and Thara complies. Teru pushes Thara’s trousers down his hips and as far down his thighs as the garment will go, with Thara kneeling astride Teru’s lap. Then Thara feels the heat of Teru’s hand on his cock again as Teru presses them together along their lengths.

Neither of them is silent now, even if Thara’s moans are more continuous than Teru’s and a shade louder. He anchors his hands on Teru’s bare shoulders and his feet beneath Teru’s still-clad thighs. As Teru holds their cocks together, slowly and evenly Thara raises and lowers himself. He can feel the clear seed spreading out over both of them, not only his own foreskin but Teru’s sliding exquisitely against the sensitive shaft beneath.

Teru’s free hand leaves Thara’s hip and slides between his thighs to gently cup his stones. Thara clenches his teeth, throbbing against Teru’s palm, and wonders how long he’ll last. Then the hand moves to his buttocks, fondling and squeezing, making it even more difficult for him to continue moving in a straight vertical line. He manages — until one finger slips into the cleft and strokes over his hole, and Thara cries out as his hips swerve wildly.

Teru guides him back into place. “Don’t stop,” he breathes, the desperation palpable in his voice, and Thara obeys. Teru’s hand remains on Thara’s arse, doing no more than holding him now, but its heat alone is maddening enough in tandem with the slip of intimate skin against intimate skin. He studies as much of Teru as the firelight permits — eyes wide and dark and worshipful, lips parted, color high, ears as erect and gleaming as their cocks — and that’s when he feels it, the crest in tension that heralds the beginning of the end.

“I’m — ” he gasps, watching Teru’s eyes widen further, and he is poised on the line between not spending and spending when he feels the same finger not only stroke at him but, just barely, breach him. Thara’s entire body contracts, as if he were clenching around the entire length of Teru’s cock, and he cries out again as the climax wrenches through him. His cheek has come to rest against Teru’s, and he can feel Teru’s breath hot on his face and neck as Teru goes rigid and utters the most beautiful cry of ecstasy Thara thinks he will ever hear.

Through the daze of afterglow, throughout a kiss fierce with awe, he can feel the heavy stickiness from both of them on his own cock and somewhat on his belly, and the light perspiration everywhere they touch. Both of them are still panting, but Thara can once again hear the crackle of the fire. Though the room is warmer now, the air begins to feel cool against his moistened skin.

After a moment, Teru reaches over toward the headboard. Thara didn’t notice the little niches in it earlier, cleverly placed by the woodcarver to blend in with the iconography. From one of these Teru pulls out a plain handkerchief. He attends to Thara first, then to himself with a precise, efficient neatness before he balls the cloth up and returns it to the niche. They wriggle completely out of their trousers to let them drop to the floor, and then Thara, on his side, finds his back encompassed entirely by Teru’s front. Though he is not very sleepy, he closes his eyes and lets everything that is Teru enfold him.

“Forgive me,” Teru says with a yawn. “It is not my wont to fall asleep afterward, but as I’ve said my schedule is awry. I fear I will not keep my eyes open much longer. Wilt stay, nonetheless?”

“I am thy houseguest, am I not?” Thara asks wryly.

He can feel the soft snort against his nape. “That is not what I meant, and know’st that well.”

Thara grins, though he knows Teru cannot see it. “Yes, of course I’ll stay here with thee tonight. Though I may rise to pray or read while sleep’st.”

“As wilt,” Teru says muzzily. It is barely another minute before the even rise and fall of his chest against Thara’s back makes it clear he will say nothing else for hours.

Thara lies against him for a long, long while, soaking up his heat and scent and the solid, reassuring there-ness of him, dozing now and again. Eventually the need for the lavatory and a long drink of water drives him out of the bed. In the wardrobe he finds a dressing robe that is much too long and wide for him, and ruefully he looks forward to wearing clothes that fit him again. He belts the loose folds around himself tightly before exiting the bedchamber.

When he returns, he does not climb back into bed alongside Teru. He takes the candle and browses the bookcase, where he finds a heavy and use-worn tome with the title _Themes and Symbols in the Poems of Rova Eimenar_. With it, he settles into a chair by the hearth. The time passes without him much marking it, nor much noticing the unforgiving press of the wooden seat against him through the robe, until he is awash in the pallid morning light coming in through the window and, from the opposite direction, the approving glint of sea-colored eyes and a smile like the high summer sun.


End file.
